Dripping Tap Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

A dripping tap must think....
(that is, if you subscribe to
what Gods have hinted at,
that lifeless objects have a life) .

The tap I know began
to notice that each day
a dropp or two escaped
without authorization.

She was convinced, of course,
and very rightly so,
that it was of her substance,
elixir of life that drained away.

The tap, now filled with sadness,
itself a strange affliction,
which occupies the spaces
left by departing goodness

it now began to weep
about the loss and its finality,
lack of reversibility,
but nothing changed at all.

The drip intensified
to sixty beats a minute.
And, when the plumber came
he grasped the meaning of it all,

and left without his usual fee
because he knew intuitively
that only God is authorised
to put an end to tears.